Aesop's Fables

This new project I'm working on is to redesign the classic book of Aesop's Fables with my own illustrations. This is my progress thus far, although we're nearing completion. Eventually, I hope to actually get the book manufactured so that it is a real product.

I'm centering on the more well known tale of the fox trying to reach the grapes for the cover. The fable goes:

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

IT IS EASY TO DESPISE WHAT YOU CANNOT GET.

And here's my process:

I decide to go with this version. Most people couldn't tell until I explained with this sketch, but imagine that we're by the grapes on top of a wall looking down at the fox, and he's looking up at the grapes he can't reach.

This is my final sketch, although I scale down the fox to make the grapes seem more out of reach and to allow for more room for my book title. I'm still deciding now that I see how the project is turning out whether or not I should include the parade of animals at the top, or if I should think of something else.

Beginning to ink in.

Ink detail.